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“Not strictly based on his size. Which would have been one thing, but apparently Wallace is small of stature and of intellect.”

Simon laughed. Again.

“Well, not ‘apparently,’” Frances went on. “Wallace is undeniably quite stupid.”

She lifted him so he was at face level and cooed, “Handsome, but a bit dim, isn’t that right? I have a type, don’t I?” She laughed as she returned Wallace to her lap.

“Oh, don’t look so scandalized,” she said to Simon. “Your brother had many wonderful qualities. He was generous and fun and, you have to admit, extremely lovely. But you got the brains in the family, and you know it.”

Simon wasn’t sure how to respond, but her words made him smile. Frances had always been cheeky. His mother had called it brazenness, but Simon had always found Frances’s forthright wit refreshing.

“So, yes, the neighbors were planning to put Wallace down.” She shuddered. Frances had a tendency to present herself as world-weary, but in truth, she had a soft heart.

“I’d forgotten how terrible the neighbors here are,” Simon said.

When Frances first married James, she had regaled them with appalling tales of her parents’ dramatic and entitled neighbors.

“I hoped they had mellowed in my time away,” Frances said. “But instead, I think they’ve become meaner and louder.”

“You could have stayed at Galecroft, you know.” He had told her that no small number of times, but it bore repeating.

“And fight your mother over the dower house? I think not.”

He resisted pointing out that Mother had not moved to the dower house. She would never do that.

“We both know there will only ever be one Dowager Countess of Marsden.” Frances’s eyes twinkled. “Even if there are two.”

In terms of titles, things were indeed messy. When Father died, James, as the older of the twins by two minutes, inherited and became the Earl of Marsden. Frances therefore became the Countess of Marsden, promoting Mother to the rank of Dowager Countess of Marsden—though Mother hadn’t seen it as a promotion, a fact she’d made abundantly clear to everyone. And now that James was dead, Frances was also the Dowager Countess of Marsden, though there were subtle differences in the way the two women, were they ever to appear in company together, would be referred to and addressed.

But, legalities and social conventions aside, Simon knew exactly what Frances meant when she said there couldn’t be two dowagers.

“Poor Simon, you’re awash in widows. You’d better never marry,” Frances teased, “or there shall be one Countess of Marsden and two Dowager Countesses of Marsden, and we shall all expire of bewilderment.” She must have seen something in his countenance he had thought hidden, for she suddenly looked alarmed. “You know I am in jest, do you not? Nothing would make me happier than for you to marry—to marry for love, I mean.”

He cleared his throat. “There’s that cottage near the lake at Galecroft—quite apart from the dower house. I told you I’d’ve been happy to fix it up.” He wasn’t sure why he was hammering away at this matter she considered settled. Just that traditionally, the widow of a peer stayed on as a member of the household. He felt a duty of kinship. But it went beyond that: He liked Frances. He missed her. “Or for that matter, you could’ve elected to stay in the house here in Town. You still could.” He hesitated over saying more. To do so made him feel unpleasantly vulnerable. He decided to risk it. “I should enjoy your company.”

“Ah, Simon, and I should enjoy yours, but, if I may speak forthrightly: dear Heavens, no.” She spoke with another twinkle in her eye, but Simon understood that she meant what she said.

“Mother isn’t in Town that often,” he said weakly. It was true, even if it was an insufficient argument.

Her expression turned earnest, serious. “With my beloved James gone, why would I endure your mother in any dose?”

He understood. The reason he was in residence at the London house so often was precisely to avoid his mother, who spent most of her time at Galecroft.

And that, essentially, was why he was here, was it not? He could pretend not to know, but he was here to question Frances about what it was like to be his mother’s daughter by marriage.

“I was willing to endure her for James,” she went on. “Without him, I’m not. Even for the pleasure of your company, my dear Simon. It is as simple as that, and as cruel.”

“It’s not cruel to want to avoid cruelty. It’s sensible.”

Which was exactly what he was doing, with his disinclination toward matrimony while Mother was still around. Right?

He ought to just ask his questions. A natural opening was available now in that they were already talking about the challenges presented by Mother.

“Frances, would you tell me what your relationship with Mother was like?”

“It wasn’t good.”

“So I’ve gathered. And I understand. But I should like to know the details of its … not-goodness.”